This week you're going to crack the Moral Relativism Problem. Do you believe that the moral rules you live by ought to apply to all people, across all societies? Or should each society determine its own moral code?

Here's another hypothetical problem for you to parse for me - only this time its more real than hypothetical:

Imagine you and your friend are visiting a foreign country you have never been to before.  The residents of this country do many things that are surprising to you, but which to them are normal and accepted.  For instance, you notice that some people own slaves. In fact, it even seems commonplace, and as far as you can tell, the slaves don’t protest, but stoically accept their fate, at least as far as you can tell.  While this seems odd and troubling to you, your friend justifies the practice in the following way, “Who are we to tell these people how to do things?  Yes, it seems strange, even barbaric, but every culture does things differently.  I’m sure they have their reasons.  And perhaps we do things in America that seem barbaric to them.  Maybe we don’t approve, but we don’t have the right to tell them what to do.  Every society has its own morality.”

Is the friend correct or incorrect?  Why? 

Moral Relativism, roughly speaking, is the doctrine that social approval is the only measure of morality. Thus, morality is just whatever a particular society, at a particular place and time, says it is. For the moral relativist, saying that something is morally wrong is the same as saying that society doesn't approve of it. By contrast, Moral Absolutists assert that morality is universal and applies to all people in all places and times, regardless of the prevailing norms.

If you're a relativist, you're probably inclined to agree with the friend in the hypothetical scenario. If you're an absolutist, you're probably more likely to say no, the friend is wrong. Are there some things that are always wrong, even if the majority in the society where they occur accepts them?

Notice that I am not asking whether we should do anything about egregious practices we see occurring in other societies - that would be a separate (though also important) question - I'm asking whether morality is relative to its society, or whether we think there are some basic moral absolutes that should apply to all societies, even if the societies in question don't recognize those moral absolutes.

So, is the friend correct, ought we dismiss moral dilemmas if the majority approves?